Facts? Thinking It's True Sets Foley Free

Today in this space, we're introducing a new Tom Foley-inspired game called "I Think It's True But It Might Not Be."

As many of you know, Tom Foley, not yet a candidate for governor, has been touring the state directing charges at Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, which Foley admits, may or may not be true. Even if they're not true, he says, they could be important anyway.

This is a great time to be alive. Connecticut politics is entering its post-Enlightenment phase, in which reason and fact-finding give way — as they must — to blind ritual and superstition.

So welcome to "I Think It's True But It Might Not Be." Read each statement and make up your mind about its truthfulness. Check the answers below.

1. Which of the following statements are true? (a) The state Department of Social Services hired a convicted prostitute with a record of larceny for a job handling money (b) this person is named Suki Handly (c) Suki Handly is featured in Connecticut's "Still Revolutionary" tourism campaign (d) Suki Handly stole $44,000 from her state job. (e) She told investigators it was because of her Oxycontin habit.

2. Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton killed a drifter in Abilene, Texas.

3. Representatives of the Access Health CT, the new state health insurance exchange, recently visited a rap show by Lil Wayne and T.I. to acquaint concertgoers with the details of Obamacare.

4. Lil Wayne's new CD "Violation of Participation or Contribution Rates" is based heavily on the actual language of Affordable Care Act, including lines such as: "(13) in section 2736 (42 U.S.C. 300gg–22), as so 16 redesignated by section 1001(4) — I get the 411 on where my bitches are."

5. U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said something funny at a yearly political event called the Crocodile Club.

6. During power outages and major snowstorms, cannibalism is not uncommon in Shelton.

7. Recently, a man who tried to warn Glastonbury bank tellers that another customer had a gun was arrested for breach of peace.

ANSWERS:

1. They are all true except for the tourism campaign, even though Suki Handly seems like a made-up prostitute name. (Note to Foley: Suki Handly was hired during the Rell years.) The department says its screening process is now more rigorous. This probably involves, at minimum, typing an applicant's name into Google, an investigative technique that does yield information about Handly's criminal past.

2. We have no reason to believe Mark Boughton has ever taken a life, especially because, if he did, he would totally Tweet about it.

5. Yes! This happened! The Crocodile Club is a tradition in which people gather in Bristol and put aside their political differences in order to get drunk in the middle of the day. Then politicians take the stage and say things that, at least theoretically, could coagulate into a joke, but that has never happened until this year when Blumenthal, referring to his psychotic need to be present at parades and chicken dinners, admitted that he would "attend a can-opening." (Source: CTNewsJunkie.com)

6. Probably people do not eat each other in Shelton, but it raises questions about how Foley, as governor, would conduct briefings during times of crisis. Would he just repeat stuff he had heard? "People tell me Norfolk took 83 inches and is basically gone. There's a lot of buzz to that effect." Or, "A guy told me in Ledyard, they're fighting with knives for bread and toilet paper."

7. True. The gun-carrier in question turned out to be legal and licensed, but Robert Gursky did not know that, so he whispered "gun" to a teller and tried to write a note about it. I could see how, if one were overexcited, there could be problems with penmanship and sentence structure. You know what is not true? That whole "If You See Something, Say Something campaign."

If you get a perfect score, I will share with you the Oxycontin some guy told me Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman hid inside a statue in Bushnell Park.

Colin McEnroe appears from 1 to 2 p.m. weekdays on WNPR-FM (90.5) and blogs at http://courantblogs.com/colin-mcenroe/. He can be reached at Colin@wnpr.org.